U.S. land borders with Canada, including the Blue Water Bridge, will stay closed to non-essential travel for at least another month.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the decision to continue to temporarily limit the travel of individuals from Canada into the U.S. to essential traffic only.
The DHS said in a notice in the U.S. Federal Register, that given the continued transmission and spread of COVID-19 within the United States and around the world, and the threat of new variants, it has determined the risk to be too high to reopen the land border with Canada.
"Given the sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus, coupled with risks posed by new variants, returning to previous levels of travel between the two nations places the personnel staffing land ports of entry between the United States and Canada, as well as the individuals traveling through these ports of entry, at increased risk of exposure to the virus associated with COVID-19."
The new travel order expires at 12:01 a.m. August, 21. Pandemic restrictions at the border have been in effect since March, 2020.
On Monday, the federal government announced that fully vaccinated American citizens and permanent residents may enter Canada for non-essential purposes as of August 9.